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China's growing threat to academic freedom

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: China's growing threat to academic freedom

#41

Post by bgee »

kevinwang wrote: post #38
bgee wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was educated in China for 11 years, I would argue the part of KMT that CCP left out in my history book was mostly covering up the corruption and incompetence of KMT. For example, little did I know that KMT deliberately destroyed a dam to "stop" Japanese army that killed almost 1 million instantly and later caused a famine in Henan that caused between 288,006 and 1,484,983 deaths right at my hometown[0]…

Why would they want to leave that out

Perhaps because my history book was a textbook first, the CCP touches were extra. Not the other way around.

Re: China's growing threat to academic freedom

#42

Post by dtwest »

bgee wrote: post #37
yorwba wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I hear, the CCP is displayed as bearing the brunt of the Japanese assault in Chinese textbooks, with the KMT only playing a minor role. I guess they want to avoid the KMT looking like war heroes whose weakness after the war was abused by the CCP to seize power. EDIT: For anyone interested in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the civil war that followed it, HistoryLapse (by HN user domnuprofesor) ran an inter…

The question of which fource contributed the most in a war is actually not that easy. For example, the answer of who defeated Nazi changed significantly in the last 70 years in Europe [0]. [0]: https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year...

This is interesting. I wish there were more data points, they only show opinion in France in 1945, 1994 and 2004.

The USSR may have saved Europe from Germany, but the USA saved Western Europe from the USSR. The French in 1945 were likely aware of this.

Re: China's growing threat to academic freedom

#43

Post by bananabreakfast »

bgee wrote: post #35
derefr wrote: post #10

Anyone know what parts specifically of the KMT’s story are “left out” in the version of history promulgated by the PRC, such that a full accounting would be risky? My first guess: the strong affiliation between Sun Yat-sen and the party, since the CCP still seems to respect Sun and his Three Principles and use (their interpretations of) them to justify CCP tentpoles.

As someone who was educated in China for 11 years, I would argue the part of KMT that CCP left out in my history book was mostly covering up the corruption and incompetence of KMT. For example, little did I know that KMT deliberately destroyed a dam to "stop" Japanese army that killed almost 1 million instantly and later caused a famine in Henan that caused between 288,006 and 1,484,983 deaths right at my hometown[0]…

Wow, your significant figures are way off here

Re: China's growing threat to academic freedom

#44

Post by bgee »

bananabreakfast wrote: post #43
bgee wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was educated in China for 11 years, I would argue the part of KMT that CCP left out in my history book was mostly covering up the corruption and incompetence of KMT. For example, little did I know that KMT deliberately destroyed a dam to "stop" Japanese army that killed almost 1 million instantly and later caused a famine in Henan that caused between 288,006 and 1,484,983 deaths right at my hometown[0]…

Wow, your significant figures are way off here

Sorry which ones?

I quoted from the Chinese wikipedia page and there might be some discrepancies there...

Re: China's growing threat to academic freedom

#45

Post by kd3 »

igravious wrote: post #18
kd3 wrote: post #16

This is disgusting. I felt sick just reading the headline. What an absolutely disgusting country.

You got a bit of a bee in your bonnet about China judging from your comment history.

I don't think people realize what kind of serious damage is done to all of humanity by censorship and destroying knowledge of history in this way. It's an enormous tragedy.

Re: China's growing threat to academic freedom

#46

Post by derefr »

bgee wrote: post #44
bananabreakfast wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, your significant figures are way off here

Sorry which ones? I quoted from the Chinese wikipedia page and there might be some discrepancies there...

They mean that a range with error-bars as wide as (288,006 - 1,484,983) should look more like (0.3 - 1.5 million), since that sort of discrepancy between the estimates implies that neither measurement could have possibly been accurate down to the individual person.

Re: China's growing threat to academic freedom

#47

Post by bgee »

derefr wrote: post #46
bgee wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry which ones? I quoted from the Chinese wikipedia page and there might be some discrepancies there...

They mean that a range with error-bars as wide as (288,006 - 1,484,983) should look more like (0.3 - 1.5 million), since that sort of discrepancy between the estimates implies that neither measurement could have possibly been accurate down to the individual person.

Ah that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

Re: China's growing threat to academic freedom

#48

Post by lom888 »

bgee wrote: post #37
yorwba wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I hear, the CCP is displayed as bearing the brunt of the Japanese assault in Chinese textbooks, with the KMT only playing a minor role. I guess they want to avoid the KMT looking like war heroes whose weakness after the war was abused by the CCP to seize power. EDIT: For anyone interested in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the civil war that followed it, HistoryLapse (by HN user domnuprofesor) ran an inter…

The question of which fource contributed the most in a war is actually not that easy. For example, the answer of who defeated Nazi changed significantly in the last 70 years in Europe [0]. [0]: https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year...

In postwar France the PCF had a large swathe of support after the war due to the Communist role in the resistance (among other reasons). At this time the PCF was a very pro-Soviet party and this support for the Soviets may have translated into the result that you see in the referenced poll.

Support for the PCF waned after de-Stalinization, the Hungarian Uprising and finally the Prague Spring; I'd wager that if one were to look at levels of support for the PCF over the years one could map the switch in perception as to which country contributed most to winning the war.

Re: China's growing threat to academic freedom

#49

Post by pasabagi »

dtwest wrote: post #42
bgee wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question of which fource contributed the most in a war is actually not that easy. For example, the answer of who defeated Nazi changed significantly in the last 70 years in Europe [0]. [0]: https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year...

This is interesting. I wish there were more data points, they only show opinion in France in 1945, 1994 and 2004. The USSR may have saved Europe from Germany, but the USA saved Western Europe from the USSR. The French in 1945 were likely aware of this.

The French in 1945 voted the communists into power - so I'm not sure they generally had the same views on the USSR as modern people do.

Re: China's growing threat to academic freedom

#50

Post by dang »

kd3 wrote: post #16

This is disgusting. I felt sick just reading the headline. What an absolutely disgusting country.

Obviously you can't post like this to HN, regardless of how strongly you feel about any country.

We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html if you want to review them.

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